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Numerical simulations of acoustic emissions due to offshore‐pile installation
Author(s) -
Henke Sascha,
Milatz Marius,
Grabe Jürgen
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
pamm
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 1617-7061
DOI - 10.1002/pamm.201110304
Subject(s) - pile , offshore wind power , hammer , renewable energy , marine engineering , submarine pipeline , finite element method , environmental science , noise (video) , engineering , wind power , geotechnical engineering , structural engineering , computer science , electrical engineering , artificial intelligence , image (mathematics)
The use of renewable energy is growing due to economic reasons and a spreading sense of ecology. One possible source for renewable energy is wind energy. It is predicted that the number of offshore wind parks will be increasing within the next ten years. The foundation piles of offshore wind power plants are normally installed by impact driving. This leads to an emission of acoustic noise which possibly influences or even damages the sense of hearing of marine mammals like seals and whales. In this contribution the propagation of acoustic waves in air and water due to pile driving is investigated using the finite element method (FEM) with an explicit time integration scheme. In the analyses a mass representing the pile hammer falls on an elastically modeled offshore monopile. The surrounding media is varied between air and water in order to investigate the acoustic emissions due to the pile driving process with respect to the medium. The numerical results are compared to measurements which can be found in literature to verify the numerical models. Furthermore, as a practical example the numerical model can be used in order to simulate noise reduction techniques such as the bubble curtain. (© 2011 Wiley‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)